The church in England opens its doors to cause the offer to attract converters

Shipley, England – He sits around the wrestling ring, the church were destroyed as a local hero Billy O’Keeffe body, “the fighter called the student slammed. Beneath the stained glass windows, they cheered and cheering like Burly, the tattooed pile crashed into the passage during a six-hour tag battle.

This is the Croatian Church, which brings blood, sweat and tears – mostly sweat – to St. Peter Anglican Church in the northern England city of Shipley. It is the creation of Gareth Thompson, a charismatic 37-year-old who says he saved him throwing him and Jesus – and wants others to have the same experience.

Thompson says that the pretermed characters and scripted battles of the morality of professionals naturally fit in with the Christian message.

“Exclude him on the basics, it’s good in relation to evil,” he said. “When I became a Christian, I began to see wrestling around the Christian lens. I started to see David and Goliatha. I started seeing Cain and Abel. And I could say,” we could say “,” we could say. ” “

Attending Church in Great Britain decades decreases, and the census 2021 was determined that less than half of the people in England and Wales is now are regarded as Christian. Those who say they do not have religion rose from 25% to 37% in a decade.

It led the churches to move in order to survive.

“You have to take a few risks,” Rev. said Natasha Thomas, a priest in charge of Sveti Peter. She admitted that “was not fully secure what I left about” when she agreed to host the events.

“It’s not a church as she would know. He is certainly not for everything,” she said. “But it leads to another group of people, a different community than we would normally get.”

On the recent wrestling church, almost 200 people – older couples, teens, punched and tattooed wrestling fans, parents with excited small children – crowded chairs around the rings raised on the entire ceiling of the old church.

After a short homilie and prayer from Thomas, it was time for two hours of small-minded, body stabs and flying heads. The atmosphere grunted cheerfully to cheer up, because fans waved with giant foams and pierced “knock it out!” in the participants.

Some long-term church greeted the infusion of energy.

“I think that’s absolutely wonderful,” Chris Moss said, who married her husband Mike in Sveti Petr almost 50 years ago.

“You can see some of the wrestlers and think,” – He was strengthened his face in the contempt. But talking to them did to understand “you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover.”

Thompson, whose struggles Monikar is Gareth Angel, both Croats and chaired over organized Mayhem. He is a combination of preacher and a ring, carrying a shirt that says “pray, eat, Croats, repeat”.

He loved wrestling because he provided comfort and released during the problematic upbringing that he saw him surviving sexual abuse of childhood and the period of homelessness as a teenager.

“I could watch Shawn Michaels and stone and stone cold (Steve Austin) and I could be like, I want to be like them,” he said. “So that’s always been an escape for me and release and a way to get away from things. But then God obviously made it aware and became this passion.”

In 2011, he found Christianity, he ran his first wrestling church event in the former night church in the nightclub in 2022. And moved to St. Peter last year.

Like monthly on Saturday night, wrestling of his charity leads to adult trainings and children in the back room of the church, along with women’s self-defense classes, a male health group and training for children who are expelled from school.

Many in the close union of the British and the British fans, religion is a new ingredient, but not undesirable.

“I am mostly here for wrestling,” said a 33-year-old Liaragovor book, which fights like Flamin ‘Daemon Crowe. Sitting in the ruin room for change, because they discussed the battles, donated pillows for knees and increased their boots for many holes, said it was a little “surreal” when baptism kept between boots.

“It works in both ways,” he said. “There are people who are here big for religion, and they are here for all such things. And then they move,” Oh, actually this wrestling is somehow fun. “

Kiara, Royal Writings Ruling Women’s Champion, said the organization helped her bring her Catholic faith in her wrestling life.

“Thanks to the royal wrestling that I trusted that we pray in the locker room before the match,” Kiara said, 26, known outside the ring as Stephanie Sid. “I invite my opponent to pray with me, pray we have a safe match, he prays there is no harm and pray that we all entertain.”

Only a handful of people went from watching to wrestle to attend Sunday morning services in St. Peter, but in the first year she baptized the church. Thompson, whose brand of birthday – again Christianity is more muscular than many traditional Anglicians, plans to expand to other British cities. One day he says, he can start his church.

They overlap between Christianity and hrps in the US, where the figures like Thompson’s hero Shawn Michaels proudly declare their faith. But Britain is a less religious place, and Shipley, a former mill mill 175 miles (280 kilometers) north of London, is a long way from the Bible belt.

Thompson, however, was not dishonest of doubt.

“People say,” Oh, wrestling and Christianity, two are fake things in the fake world of his existence, “he said.” If you don’t believe that, of course you’ll think. But my personal experience of my Christian faith is that she is alive and alive, and it is true. If you really believe in it, you believe it is true and you can suspend your infidelity.

“You suspend him because you want to get lost in that. You want to believe that. You want to hope for it.”

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Coverage Associated Prep Prep Diet Receives Support via AP cooperation With the conversation of the US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. AP is solely responsible for this content.